About the Deck and Fence Business from the founder of GardenStructure.com

Friday, February 24, 2012

Wood Fencing - Common Mistakes

Wood Fencing is a subject lacking any professional grade information in books on how to build for durability. On top of that, nearly everyone oversimplifies why fences stand up they way they should. There are many thousands of books and most of the information is recycled from information put out by lumber yards over the past hundred years.

The "Art" of building fences is indeed becoming lost in a sea of mis-information. We are sharing the basics in a work in progress, "Fence School". We'll be filling in content over the next year to teach good basic fundamentals to builders as well as home owners that want to "Do It Yourself".

This wood fence is located on a commercial property in Barrie Ontario and is one of the best example of a wood fence failure. The fence was built lacking vertical support, and someone added vertically oriented 2x4's after the fact.

Since there was not enough support, and just 2x2's nailed to 2x4's oriented on the flat, the fence sagged causing the boards to come loose. When it comes to commercial wood fences you need to build much stronger to resist snow being plowed and wind that whips across open parking lots.

These guys didn't consider that trees grow, and this seemingly harmless small tree pushed a rail and the lattice out over the next few years.

When they added the extra rails, they didn't bother to connect them to the posts, thus, adding weight to an already failing fence, rather than adding vertical strength.

They also didn't consider that in this frost prone area, concrete curbs will lift a couple of inches each season. This aggravated the issue. Mounting rails too close to the ground is a common flaw. Ground swells as moisture within it freezes putting stress on wood fences.